Why should you leave a glass and a sheet of paper in the kitchen sink when you go on vacation?

Don’t look at me like that, you clicked on this to find out. It just so happens that leaving a glass of water and a sheet of paper in your kitchen sink while you go on holiday can have a surprising effect by the time you get back. Any guesses?

Nope! Wrong! It turns out that doing so can avoid a smell of damp and sewage when you get back from Mallorca/San Francisco/[add summer destination here].

On hot days, when the house is closed for hours, days or even weeks, the evaporation of water in the pipes can break the “plug” that prevents bad sewage odours from making their way into your kitchen.

The U-bends and other corners in the pipelines throughout your house maintain a small amount of water in their systems and that acts as a ‘plug’ that keeps stinks away. However, over time, the water evaporates, and the smells get through your security barrier quicker than a Norwegian with a bald JD Vance photo on his phone.

Away from odour-blocking, making sure you leave your house clean is another step to having a happy family when you get back. A quick tidy round means that not only do you come back to a clean house free of jobs when you return, but it also discourages creepy crawlies from making tu casa su casa in your absence.

The same goes for binning perishables: it may sound obvious, but you don’t want to come home to a 3-week-old rotten apple on the table; or, worse, a stinky cauliflower.

Make sure all your appliances are turned off at the plug. Everything. You don’t want any trouble. Except the fridge: we trust the fridge.

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